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meth prices skyrocket and quality drops

* Over 1.4 million Americans have tired meth this year.(source: 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health) * Over 12.3 million Americans age 12 and older have tired meth since 2003.* Meth use is greatest among 35-45 year olds.* The biggest increase in treatment is among 18-25 year olds.* Meth treatment admission has outpaced cocaine and herion in 14 US states.* "Ice" currently sells for $12,000 to $16,000 per pound at the wholesale level.(source: A&E documentary "Meth in the City" aired 12/17/06)

According to the Oregonian newspaper in November 2006:The purity of methamphetamine has fallen sharply across the country while its price has increased, suggesting that a crackdown on meth ingredients in Mexico and the United States has dramatically curtailed production of the drug. ​

Meth seized by drug agents in spring 2006 averaged 51 percent pure, down from 77 percent in spring 2005, according to The Oregonian's analysis of federal data. At the same time, prices have more than doubled. A gram of uncut meth cost about $260 this past spring, up from $100 a year before. It was the first significant, sustained decline in purity and increase in price since 1997. The impact on meth use nationwide cannot yet be calculated. But some treatment providers and meth users in Oregon say people are using meth less frequently and not getting as high when they do. Studies have shown that fewer people use drugs when purity is low and the price is high. Rob Bovett, legal counsel to the Oregon Narcotics Enforcement Association and a national meth activist, said the drop in purity signifies progress against meth producers. "What's happening is clear as day," Bovett said. "They're making less meth." The setback for the meth trade follows tight restrictions by the United States and Mexico on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, ingredients in cold medicine that are used to make meth. Starting in 2004, dozens of states began requiring an ID and signature to buy cold remedies with pseudoephedrine. Drug companies responded by introducing cold remedies with phenylephrine, which won't make meth. Seizures of meth labs fell by 59 percent in Oregon and 30 percent nationally from 2004 to 2005. U.S. officials predict further reductions because cold-pill restrictions became law nationwide on Sept. 30. ​

South of the border, Mexican officials took a more direct approach. They slapped stringent quotas on companies that import pseudoephedrine. They barred middlemen from the business and shut down suspicious pharmacies. The results for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are staggering. North America's imports of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, trade data show, have declined 75 percent since 2004. The projected 850-ton reduction equals half of global trade in the chemicals for 2004, statistics from the International Narcotics Control Board show. Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine manufacturers overseas have suffered devastating losses in sales. Now there are signs that the reduction in imports also is contributing to a violent struggle among Mexican traffickers, who supply an estimated 80 percent of meth that Americans consume. On July 24, robbers stole 1 ton of pseudoephedrine from a pharmaceutical company warehouse in Mexico City. The thieves left behind four security guards bound, gagged and stabbed to death. The degree of violence was unprecedented for a pseudoephedrine heist. But the motive was powerful: A 25-kilogram barrel of pseudoephedrine, worth $1,500 in the legitimate marketplace, reportedly costs $220,000 on the Mexican black market. Mexico's top prosecutor for organized crime, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said the sharp drop in imports has made traffickers desperate to acquire pseudoephedrine. "That reduction is the crisis that we see here today," he said. U.S. and Mexican officials are coordinating efforts to curb diversion of meth's essential ingredients. ​

Christy McCampbell, the State Department's new deputy assistant secretary for counternarcotics, said her first official visit to Mexico focused primarily on meth because of the country's booming production of the drug in recent years. "They've been cooking, cooking, cooking down there," said McCampbell, who learned about meth superlabs as head of California's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. But McCampbell said Mexican officials are ready to attack the meth problem. "They are becoming acutely aware of it," McCampbell said, "and they've made every indication that I can see that they want to work with it." ​

Real changeThe profound shift in the meth world has been hard to miss, according to police, treatment counselors and users. Oregon State Police Detective John Mogle, a member of the Klamath County Interagency Narcotics Task Force, said dealers increasingly dilute or "step on" their meth with additives. "If you get down to the small user that's buying the eight ball, your percentage is going to be way low, because it's been stepped on so much," Mogle said, using the street term for one-eighth of an ounce. "I think everywhere, the whole state's seeing that." Mogle said a pound of meth in Klamath County went for $6,000 in early 2005; now it's $11,000 to $13,000. Ounces last year ranged in price from $500 to $600; now they sell for $1,100 to $1,200. Although it is too soon to quantify how meth users are responding to weaker, more expensive meth, there are promising signs. "What we're hearing from clients is that the meth that is around has probably been cut more, and they're not getting as high from it," said Rita Sullivan, executive director of the OnTrack treatment program in Medford. What's more, the drug is hard to come by. Kelli Bradley, 33, of Medford stopped using meth in July 2005 after joining a recovery group. When she relapsed eight months later, she no longer could get as high as she wanted, anytime she wanted. ​

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Has anyone seen phsyical evidence of this in their neck of the woods? Seeing as I'm in the UK I can't ask my friends that use drugs (unlike myself) to check the veracity of this statement, but it seems a reasonably doubtful one to me. If Meth and Coke availability is going down then something else must be going up - and with all the recent furore over cannabis I shouldn't be surprised if people were back on bud.

The quality hasn't seem to have gone down for SWIM. Neither has availability, but he lives in a major city so it should never be a problem.Maybe coke quality has gone down though, it seems quite a bit harder for SWIM to get good quality coke. Cannabis on the other hand is abundunt(mostly because of location), but wouldn't be surprised if cannabis is becoming widely available in good quality as the progressions in medical, and recreational use are becoming close to being legal, (and already are, but NOT under federal law) in parts of the US, and other parts of the world.

Has anyone seen phsyical evidence of this in their neck of the woods? Seeing as I'm in the UK I can't ask my friends that use drugs (unlike myself) to check the veracity of this statement, but it seems a reasonably doubtful one to me. If Meth and Coke availability is going down then something else must be going up - and with all the recent furore over cannabis I shouldn't be surprised if people were back on bud.

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NIK (no-one I know ) does have first hand knowledge. The shit in his area has been so ugly, it just makes for a waste of cash. He misses the days of old, when the stuff was made right here in our own backyard. today it is going thru to many hands coming from the southern border out of Mexico and if you ask me them hombres should not be in the speed business. unless it is being wacked to death after it reaches the U.S. I dont know , but something somewhere aint right.

There have been a few people starting to mention a drop in quality and a little less about BUT this is an inevitable effect of the restrictions on PSE/iodine etc and this will ensure a drop in supply and prices increasing;however, this will be a temporary glitch and although the politicians are saying this is great etc the truth is, as has been proven a thougsand times over and is f'ing BASIC economics, as long as there is a market demand there will be those willing to supply. IN this case, we are seeing some of the local cooks stopping due to the hassle of everything in relation to PSE RP/I methods; however, this will be countered by a) a change by some in the method of production b) The serious cooks will see there is a bigger demand and produce more c) Organised crime will become much more involved and things will become large scale - A good comparison would be local stores closing and a big Supermarket chain taking over.

In this case, there will be an initial shortage and those who can and who continue to produce will produce more as new markets are seen to exist, also , new foreign dealers will become involved and on street level at first, people will try and find more money to buy 1 gram of ok'ish meth where before they would have got by on 1/2g = more shoplifting, robbery.

In time, there will be an excess of meth floating around through overproduction and the price will come down and quality will go up.

You just have to have a look at the prohobition of alcohol in the US and prohibition of GIN in the UK to see a direct paralell between today with drugs and yesteryear with alcohol. The problem is that the majority of politicians are total f'ing arseholes who are the very last people who should be involved in any decisions that require more than a moderate IQ. We entrust our countries to people who are probably some of the most suspect human beings ever to walk the earth. Most decent honest interesting enlightened people aren't the sort of people who say "hmm, politics sounds great", a lot of individuals with too much time on their hands, who think they know how people should live, who think they are better than anyone else, who had few friends at school and were some of the last people to get laid.....they r the ones that run our countries.

English T - apart from the obvious example of American Alcohol prohibition, look at the following, quoted from "Saturn's Children":

Alan Duncan said:

For those still unconvinced, there is one instructive historical parallel apart from the notorious example of Prohibition. In 1784 Pitt introduced his Commutation Act, which lowered the duty on tea from 112 per cent to 25 per cent. By doing so he finally admitted that an enormously expensive repressive apparatus - public executions, a massive increase in the number of Customs and Excise men, the occupation of coastal towns by Army units, coastal patrols by the Royal Navy and a series of pitched battles with smuggling gangs all over England - would never prevent smugglers supplying the needs of consumers so long as the tax system ensured that the trade remained hugely profitable. The eighteenth-century smugglers were defeated in the end by the price mechanism, not the machinery of State repression. The same fate awaits the drug barons and dope dealers, if the State has the courage to admit its own impotence.

English T - apart from the obvious example of American Alcohol prohibition, look at the following, quoted from "Saturn's Children":

Alan Duncan is a Conservative MP. There is hope yet.

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That is an excellent post! I didn't know of the tea taxation and how it became an item that was smuggled in!! Really great bit of historical info that shows that criminals operate, naturally, on a purely profit basis, take that away and Bang! all drug smuggling will stop, dealers out of business, illegal production stopped, shoplifting stopped, prisons emptied, courts/police time freed up to deal with 'real' crimes.

Yeah, i did leave out that occasionally good decent peopleshow interest through necessity....What is true is that when things are going well and generations are born into times of relative stable society, food excess, general comfortable lifestyles then this is when leadership is taken over and attracts the more fat, selfish,weak/lame, unrepresentative of society and things very slowly degrade and fall apart through their own self fulfilment over that of their country (this shows up as bribes, defrauding and stealing of funds, using their power for the wrong things) (it takes time to degrade a well put together system); it is when things start to get bad again that good strong, honest, respectable people begin to show interest in leadership once more and try to rise up through the masses to take power again.

I believe that there are a few decent people who are showing interest now and do so for the love of their country not for self-fulfilment/greed/publicity but for the good of the people and the country they love.

in the U.S. meth labs have not been too much of problem since the lock down of the needed supplies. During the pre-controll days, very high qualities and quanaties were the norm, and a news cast without a mention of a lab bust was unheard of ,practacly.

some birds I know have been getting real undesirable product. this is recent and depressing.

This is the natural effect of reorganisation - INitially, with the RP/I reduction technique being so impracticable, many of the small local labs will stop producing, only the guys with any real knowledge will go on and either change techniques or find another source for supplies (although, I doubt it - the RP/I/PSE route has had its day too much trouble and too expensive to buy ingredients clandestinely) So, reorganisation will take place, some users will change to other drugs, the MExicans/crime syndicates will cut their product more and as it goes up the line it will be cut on its way resulting in the shit on the street and prices will rise. However, as its seen that there is now a big market now available which local producers cannot (initially) supply, the syndicates will go into bigger production to take advantage of the extra millions to be made. It will take time for this to occur and time for it to hit the streets so in the meantime the streets will have shit stuff (due to cutting to make it go further) at high prices. The next stage will be good stuff coming through and users will only go to certain guys with good shit. Then competition will occur as more good stuff hits town and dealers will compete for customers by price reduction and quality and possible through local murders.

At the end of the day, this is a glitch that initally removes a lot of locally produced MA but the market will reorganise with bigger crime syndicates taking over where the small guys left off.

This is the natural effect of reorganisation - INitially, with the RP/I reduction technique being so impracticable, many of the small local labs will stop producing, only the guys with any real knowledge will go on and either change techniques or find another source for supplies (although, I doubt it - the RP/I/PSE route has had its day too much trouble and too expensive to buy ingredients clandestinely) So, reorganisation will take place, some users will change to other drugs, the MExicans/crime syndicates will cut their product more and as it goes up the line it will be cut on its way resulting in the shit on the street and prices will rise. However, as its seen that there is now a big market now available which local producers cannot (initially) supply, the syndicates will go into bigger production to take advantage of the extra millions to be made. It will take time for this to occur and time for it to hit the streets so in the meantime the streets will have shit stuff (due to cutting to make it go further) at high prices. The next stage will be good stuff coming through and users will only go to certain guys with good shit. Then competition will occur as more good stuff hits town and dealers will compete for customers by price reduction and quality and possible through local murders.

At the end of the day, this is a glitch that initally removes a lot of locally produced MA but the market will reorganise with bigger crime syndicates taking over where the small guys left off.

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As Milton Friedman commented, the war on drugs protects the large cartels who can afford the expenses to avoid the law by killing off the smaller producers that can't so easily. In effect the law eliminates the competition whilst leaving most of the big rings untouched, which hands the market to dangerous gang criminals rather than small time neighbourhood producers.

Sadly the lack of good stimulants, cause a major problem to the working force. Jacked up prices and low quality product causes more money thrown away, and without good product the production value of those who do take stimulants to help advance them to a state of well being and productivity.

Just more crap to block the well meaning men and women , from getting alot of good things acomplished.

Here's a good test of quality 0.2gm of good ICE (crystal) should be enough to get 2 people totally fucked up. It's practically tasteless, it does not discolour whatsoever but melts to a clear liquid and reforms, the melted MA runs quickly - almost like water, it does not reform immediately but after about 15 seconds after the heat has been removed (from FOIL - glass pipes hold heat much, much longer and as such one cannot tell. Foil releases it's heat instantly.), a chip will seem not to get any smaller and will seem to last forever, melting and reforming again and again and again (powdered MA or crystal with impurities still contained will NOT last long on the foil at all - a proper crystal is astounding in its capability to 'keep going'), pure crystal will NOT stick to the foil (or may 'just' hang on which is usually impurity but a tiny amount in fact...) etc etc etc

When down to the very last bit on the foil, it will STILL not be discoloured, it will be clear and behave in the same way as it did when in a large pool and just as the final portion vaporises......nothing will be left on the foil - NOT one sign of its having been there!

That was the quality and is the quality that is found in Japan - The UN produced a report on MA and where the markets were etc and Japan came up consistently as the highest in quality with a 95% average purity. That was some crazy powerful shit!!!! You didn't need much of that at all, it was sooooo strong.

The USA has two sets of sentencing guidelines dependant on the quality of the MA itself, anything over 80%pure is considered ICE - Crystal Meth and below 80% is Meth powder (but big crystals of MSM cut MA are out there too and vaporises leaving no residue - I'm pretty sure acetone takes out MSM though...)

I don't know bout where you all are, but swim has seen a disturbing drop in purity,and prices going up noticably higher each month for the past 3 months...Quality is an utter disgrace compared to local-made from 10 years ago..Swim doesn't see anything changing with the Mexican pseudo-meth, except quality getting worse and worse...Because the cartels aint gonna cut their profits now, are they...?

SWIM lives in Southern CA and knows for a fact that the Purity has been consistent for over 2 years. In fact, SWIM can only find Ice and not powdered
Supply is not short at all, and SWIM hears that price is very consistent... within $20 in the past 2 years. SWIM would say the purity is around 70%... this is an estimate, but SWIM has good experience.

SWIM knows this is fact! He just might kill his usual guy - asshole steps on the shit with a lead foot, ya know what I mean?

Price in the city up from $100 per gram to damn near $225 and overall quality is so bad SWIM has to hit 1/3 gram shots (and still can't get "the cough")

Of course, we're talking about the dope that's run up from Mexico. Locally made product is still good, and the old guys have maintained the old prices - it just takes a little more leg work on SWIM's part.

SWIM knows this is fact! He just might kill his usual guy - asshole steps on the shit with a lead foot, ya know what I mean?

Price in the city up from $100 per gram to damn near $225 and overall quality is so bad SWIM has to hit 1/3 gram shots (and still can't get "the cough")

Of course, we're talking about the dope that's run up from Mexico. Locally made product is still good, and the old guys have maintained the old prices - it just takes a little more leg work on SWIM's part.